The Maker Movement is at the heart of user-centric innovation. In Democratising Innovation, Eric von Hippel asserts that technology developed by users usually has a better market-fit. This does not sound surprising. Indeed, MIT‘s Neil Gershenfeld, one of the pioneers of “personal fabrication”, has described the “killer app” of Making to be the process of creating products for the “market of one”, ie. a truly personal product. This is maybe best exemplified by the current obsession in 3D Printing – at the Maker Faire in Rome alone there seemed to have been hundreds. These days when “3D Printing” comes up in conversations it strikes me as having an symbolic quality. A 3D printer turns into an almost magical device, akin to a replicator from Star Trek. Continue reading →